Trump News

During an appearance on MSNBC on Saturday, a laughing former Southern District of New York prosecutor claimed that any advantage Donald Trump might have gained from one of his expert defense witnesses in his $250 million criminal fraud trial likely went out the window when the witness admitted how much he was paid.

Speaking with host Alex Witt, ex-prosecutor Kristy Greenberg claimed it was a "one hundred percent" certainty the money was wasted.

Pointing to New York University accounting professor Eli Bartov telling the court he billed the former president and his PAC $1,350 an hour for his time and testimony — and worked a total of 650 hours making his fee close to $900,000 — Greenberg said that would make it easy for Judge Arthur Engoron to dismiss what he had to say.

"It is interesting, he [Bartov] says he spent 650 hours on this," Greenberg began as she burst into laughter. "You wonder what he is actually looking at over that time. To be fair, to compare, the prosecution witness was paid about $350,000 — he [Bartov] has been paid more than double."

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"Here is the other thing to think about: that much money!" host Witt exclaimed. "Is it going to undermine his credibility at all? Like you were paid and, dot, dot, dot."

"One hundred percent!" Greenberg quickly shot back before explaining, "This is a bench trial, you have a judge here, not a jury. The judge is smart, he understands what was happening here. He [Bartov]was paid a handsome sum and he said what Trump wanted him to say."

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According to former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, Judge Tanya Chutkan absolutely nailed it when she denied Donald Trump's motion to dismiss his indictment related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results on presidential immunity and constitutional grounds.

Chutkan came down firmly against the former president and his lawyer's contention made in claims that presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for acts they believe fall within their official responsibilities and duties and, secondarily, that the indictment violated the former president's First Amendment rights.

In a video he posted to YouTube, an incensed Kirschner claimed what the former president was asking, in a broader sense, is immunity for any crimes he has been accused of committing.

Noting that Trump was attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, Kirschner explained, that Trump is trying to get a "get out of jail free card" from Judge Chutkan or the Appeals Court, which led him to blurt, "That ain't America."

As for Trump's attempt to get a stay on the D.C. trial that is now under consideration, while claiming he doesn't have to listen to Judge Chutkan in the interim, Kirschner warned, "This is dangerous. Danger dead-ahead. This is Donald Trump testing the waters, you know, sort of trying to test out his ability to ignore Judge Chutkan's rulings, to ignore the courts altogether. Because the courts are the greatest danger to Donald Trump's power."

Reacting to Donald Trump telling Fox News host Sean Hannity that he would act like a dictator the first day after he won re-election to the presidency, former Trump lawyer Micheal Cohen suggested it was not a joke and that there would be little in the way of keeping a newly-elected Trump from running roughshod over the Constitution.

Speaking with MSNBC host Ali Velshi, the former Trump "fixer" bluntly stated that his former boss is "dead serious" about using the power of the presidency to hunt down his enemies, and that Mexico and Canada may not be safe from annexation if he has his way.

"Don't listen to what Michael Cohen is saying, don't listen to what Ali Velshi is saying or any of the pundits you see on television," Cohen began. "Listen to what Donald is saying."

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"Yes, I have talked about this going back three years, two years, and then when my book 'Revenge' came out, it's all laid out that Donald Trump does not want to be president of the United States. How many times did I say it even on this show?" he continued. "He wants to be the dictator, the monarch, the fuhrer, the king — that is what he aspires to be. And when he says that he is going to be a dictator one day, I want to ask you this question, and I want to ask your viewers this question: when was the last time somebody became a dictator for just one day and then decided to give it up? The answer of course is never."

"He's being Donald. He is being dead serious," Cohen later added.

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During an appearance on MSNBC early Saturday morning, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner accused House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) of meddling in upcoming Jan 6 insurrection trials by releasing altered footage of the storming of the Capitol.

Speaking with host Jonathan Capehart, the legal analyst agreed that Johnson's efforts to have the faces of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists blurred in the released video footage amounts to an attempt to "taint" the jury pool.

"House Speaker Mike Johnson says he plans on blurring the faces of Capitol rioters in new footage. Is he publicly sending the message that the January 6th rioters did nothing wrong? My concern is, my question is: is he potentially tainting the jury pool by doing this?"

"He is potentially tainting the jury pool," Kirschner confirmed, "by what he just decided to do by releasing video of folks who may have been involved in criminal activity."

Adding, "Now let me hasten to add, not everybody who went to the Capitol I'm quite sure on January six necessarily committed a crime. Mike Johnson doesn't know, he wasn't there, he cannot account for what every single person did. He just said, I'm going to blur their faces to protect both the innocent and the guilty. That, to me, feels deeply unpatriotic and disrespectful of the police officers, many of whom were beaten to within an inch of their lives that day."

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"Here is the thing: all of this will be addressed in jury selection. Every single juror will be asked, 'did you see anything? Any news footage? Do you have any opinions, strong opinions, that you cannot set aside and decide this case based only on the evidence that you see introduced in the trial itself,'" he added.

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During an appearance on MSNBC's "The Katie Phang Show," former Republican party campaign consultant Rick Wilson took multiple shots at the members of Donald Trump's inner circle who are reportedly eyeing high-profile positions in his administration should he become president again.

With host Phang sharing graphics of potential Trump VP candidates and cabinet members, which included fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson, indicted Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Clark, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Wilson suggested it appears to be a gaggle of the "dumb, dangerous and deviant."

Speaking with the host, Wilson joked, "Because Donald Trump exists in an entirely separate media bubble now, he exists in a world where those people are the pictures of his America First movement when, in fact, these are people that you would not put in charge of a Waffle House."

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Continuing in the vein he added, "These are really strange people. These are people that Americans, if they take a long look at it, will be repulsed by what these folks believe. But they meet the one standard Donald Trump has set: that it is absolute loyalty, absolute obedience to Trump."

"There's nothing about these people that reflects the excuses the old Washington hands made in 2016 of, 'Oh, we'll have some people who know what they are doing, they'll steer the ship, they will help him do the right thing.'"

"None of that is real," he exclaimed. "These people are going to go into the office to punish their political enemies, to deport 10 million people, to ignore the rule of law and burn down the United States government."

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If convicted in any of his four pending criminal trials, incarcerating former President Donald Trump would present a massive logistical challenge for the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). Experts have varying opinions on how a former president of the United States would be imprisoned.

Newsweek recently interviewed four different criminal justice experts who weighed in on how Trump's prison sentence could be handled by the BOP and the US Secret Service (USSS). Because the USSS is required to provide him with a personal security detail for the rest of his life as an ex-president, trial attorney Tray Gober told Newsweek that Trump's incarceration would be "unique."

Reacting to a late Friday ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld portions of a gag order imposed on Donald Trump by Judge Tanya Chutkan, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance noted the 68-page ruling contained a buried footnote that won't make the former president happy.

Speaking with the host, Vance praised the ruling saying it protects courthouse employees from harassment while at the same time preserving Trump's 1st Amendment rights.

Having said that, she pointed to the footnote which attorney Phang also had noticed, calling it an "Easter egg."

"Yes, it is really interesting," Vance replied. "So, you know as you point out, it is a long opinion and we are all reading it late at night and suddenly, I think page 48 in, the court simply drops one sentence where it says, and it is having a conversation about Trump's request that the trial be delayed until after the election."

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"The court says, just in a very conclusory sentence, of course that is not necessary because the trial will be long over before the election takes place," she explained. "Some people might characterize that is hopeful thinking."

"There still a number of appeals that need to be concluded before this case can go to trial. But at least in the mind of these three judges, that trial is on pace for the March day that Judge Chutkan has set," she elaborated.

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Just after Friday midnight, Donald Trump weighed in on the Republican party debate he skipped on Wednesday, grading out the performances of the four challengers battling him for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

Not content with that, he snarled at former Fox News host Megyn Kelly who served as moderator and with whom he clashed when she moderated another GOP debate in 2015 during his first run for the presidency.